Search for a Method

The last few months have been filled with endings and beginnings. Just over two months ago, Anna and I spent our last few weeks in Phoenix, rushing around trying to finish our last-minute errands and making sure we got a chance to see everyone before we left. Our three-day drive home was stressful - two flat tires in one day between Oklahoma City and Tulsa - but we got some relief with Anna’s brother’s wedding which was lots of fun even if it was busy. Then, I drove back to Pennsylvania for more goodbyes and hurried packing. At the time, all of this seemed incredibly surreal, and I don’t think that it really hit me that we were moving 7000 miles away until the plane was leaving the tarmac in Chicago.

Next Tuesday will mark our sixth week living in Numazu. Despite the fact that every time I ride my bike down the street I can read only 1/100th of the signs and despite the fact that communicating in many situations is virtually impossible, again my brain is finding it hard to believe that it actually resides in Japan. In order to try to get a grasp on some of my experiences here, and at the same time, share them with everyone that I haven’t gotten a chance to share them with one-on-one, I’m going to attempt to write in this blog as regularly as possible. I’m hoping that our strange working schedules will actually be conducive to this, since an awkward one and a half hour break will become the perfect time to write.

As I just said, my goal with this blog is twofold. Naturally, I want to share all of my experiences with all of you. However, in sharing I want to avoid falling into the pitfalls of blogging about Japan described in this recent article from The Westerner’s Fear of the Neonsign. While I see some of these problems as inevitable in the cultural clash that westerners experience here, I want all of you to see the real world that we see, including the “ugly white minivans” or some of the drab businesses where we teach. I can only hope that while painting this picture for you, I can gain some understanding of what our home for the next year is really about.